


Hidden in the dark

by m_findlow



Category: Torchwood
Genre: Claustrophobia, Gen, Torchwood Fest
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-08
Updated: 2020-07-08
Packaged: 2021-03-04 21:01:38
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,383
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25142830
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/m_findlow/pseuds/m_findlow
Summary: Jack discovers that fear is in the unknown that lies ahead.
Relationships: Jack Harkness/Ianto Jones
Comments: 1
Kudos: 14





	Hidden in the dark

Jack honestly thought that it wouldn't take this long for him to lose his mind. A few dozen deaths and that would be it. Then mindless oblivion.

The first time he woke up it was shocking. It was dark, and even though he couldn't open his eyes, he knew there was no light to be seen anyway. The second sensation was that of heavy cloying at his body. It was on top of him and all around him, cold and damp and oppressive. The sheer weight of it threatened to crush his body. But that wasn't nearly as shocking as the last sensation. Where he would usually heave in a huge lungful of air, there was none. He could barely open his mouth, but when he did, it was filled immediately, choking him as dirt poured down into his throat. The more he gasped, the further in it seemed to penetrate. He tried to thrash against it but the weight had him pinned down firmly, completely immobile. If he could have gotten oxygen into his lungs, he would have screamed. Instead he came to the terrifying conclusion that he was going to die here. Dying didn't get any less scary the more it happened, and it only affirmed for him that dying and being alone was an impossibly horrifying prospect. He was alone. That was the last thought before his body tore him away from consciousness.

When he awoke, he gagged immediately on the dirt that filled his mouth and throat. It was still shocking to wake up to that, but this time he remembered where he was. The heavy feeling that squeezed against him was the soil in which he was buried. He was deep underground with no way of escaping, and yet he knew that perhaps he shouldn't even try. With only two minutes left before his brain and body shut down from the lack of oxygen he remembered willingly letting John Hart bury him. It was his penance for failing his brother, his blood. Gray might not have done the right thing, but nor could Jack fault him for doing the wrong thing. What might he have desired to avenge if he'd suffered through the years the way his brother had? He didn't get a chance to ponder it further before blackness enveloped him.

He woke again, and struggled in his earthen prison. He couldn't help it - survival instincts were just an innate reaction. Gray. This was his punishment. He'd face it like he was supposed to do. Like he deserved. A few thousand years and someone might find him, using the signal from John's ring, but there was no point thinking about that now. Now he was trapped deep underground where no one would find him, nor think to find him, nor have any way of reaching back in time to get to him.

A few dozen deaths, and the first and last thing he thought of was Gray. He let guilt eat away at him as the insects and worms ate away at his clothing, leaving him bare to the world to face his fate. They couldn't eat away at his body, but his own mind allowed him to eat his soul.

Awake again. This time he remembers the team he's left behind. It seems like he's always leaving them behind. What has happened to them back in the future? Are they okay? What if they're dead? A few thousand years from now, he's going to finally wake up and find that they're gone too. It only seems fair, after all, that they should be the ones to leave him behind this time. Or maybe he'll just be stuck down here forever. If that's what lies in wait him him, perhaps this is better. 

Resurrection number six hundred and eighty three. The raging tide of guilty thoughts and feelings has finally subsided. He's replayed them all over and over again. It's taken far longer than he imagined, but finally even his immortal consciousness can't cope anymore, and slips into a mindless catatonic state. Choke, die, resurrect. Choke, die, resurrect. It's not peaceful repose, but it's as close as he's going to get. Only one thousand eight hundred and seventy three years worth of deaths left to go.

Jack gasps, and at first he doesn't realise that the heavy weight of earth on his body is now nothing more than a few handfuls. He's been motionless for so long that it's a wonder his muscles can remember how to move. But his gag reflex has not forgotten, and he quickly turns to one side, heaving out the mouthfuls of dirt and earthworms that have taken up residence. It's still quite dark down in his hole, but even the tiniest glimmer of daylight feels like it's burning the lids of his eyes. He certainly can't open them for fear of being blinded altogether.

Confused. His brain feels jumbled. Has he been down here a day, a month, a year? How long? Even he can't tell anymore. There's voices above his head but they sound all muffled. There's too much dirt in his ears to hear them properly, but someone has found him. As his thoughts begin to coalesce, he realises that perhaps the team he abandoned so long ago might have finally found him. It's almost more than his heart can stand. After all of the guilt and the horror, anything even remotely akin to happiness threatens to overwhelm him. He has to open his eyes and find out who it is.

Slowly, but carefully, he struggles up onto his hands and knees. Whoever is up there hasn't reached down to offer him a hand up, at least not that he can see. It's all the more incentive to open his eyes. He shades them with one hand, brushing away the caked mud and dirt with the other, until he's sure he can crack them open. He's glad for the dimness of the hole, because it makes it easier. Slowly but surely, the world comes into focus around him, and he can make out the muddy hole, and his own equally filthy body. Keeping a hand above his eye line, he risks a peek skyward, careful not to look directly up at the daylight. There are two figures looking down on him from above. He squints, trying to focus on them and tie the voices to the faces. That's when he comes to the realisation that it's not his team. But the faces are familiar. There's a black man and a white woman and he knows them immediately. Charles and Alice. That must make this, what, early twentieth century? As much of a relief as it is to be freed, it's also incredibly disheartening. He's still over a hundred years from his own time line, and worse, he realises, he's about to cross his own.

As if that's not bad enough, he finally catches the look of disgust and annoyance on Alice's face. Of all the people in all the time lines on Earth, why did she have to be the one to find him? Could there be a worse fate than having to face Alice and Emily and explain himself? They disliked him at the best of times. Worse now that there were two of him, and that he'd somehow have to avoid himself without the test of the team giving him away. It was almost tempting to ask them to bury him again. Perhaps Alice would be accommodating of his request. She already looked suitably disappointed that her potentially amazing discovery had fallen well below even her lowest expectations. In fact, she seemed quite livid, and about three seconds away from ripping the shovel from Charles' hands and clobbering him with it.

Fortunately, the idea struck him before the shovel did. The vaults. They could freeze him. Set the timer for another thousand years so that he could wake up at just the right moment to stop Gray from destroying the city and hurting his friends. All he had to do was convince Emily.

It was a veritable mountain he'd set himself to climb, but he'd served his punishment for failing Gray. He wasn't about to serve another one for failing his team when they needed him most.


End file.
